Tamales

I have lost my desire to wear a Halloween costume this year. Well actually, I was sick sick of seeing 20 something women parading in 4 inch stilettos, flared mini-skirts and and some sort of corset top and passing that off as some sort of costume. Really, a grown woman wearing a tight and short Catholic school uniform is supposed to be sexy and not actually promoting pedophilia?

Sorry, got lost in my rant. I still wanted to honor the holiday and since moving to San Diego, I have been getting in touch of my Mexican roots. I decided to make tamales for el dia de los muertos.

Preparation the day ahead:

I bought some pork back fat at Whole Foods. Washed it and cut it into small slices. Placed it into a 250 F oven for 5 hours. Poured off the fat into mason jars and cooled it in the fridge. That's right folks, I had my own lard for this adventure.

Also, I bought the butcher's special at Whole Foods which is the leftover cuts of meat, mainly bone in shoulder chops. I put it in the crock pot with a head of garlic, salt, and pepper. It went for 5 hours on low. For the sauce, I took some of the pork broth and rehydrated pasilla peppers with some cooked onions, cumin, and jalapenos.

All of the stuff went in the fridge overnight.

El dia de los Tamales

On Sunday, I woke up early. I did all my usual Sunday business and by 10 am, I was back in my pajamas ready for my cooking adventure. I set up a tamale assembly station on the dining table, which was moved closer to the television. While many an abuelita told me that I need to purchase fresh masa, I realized that tracking down fresh masa for my tamales was excessive. So I purchased the one
available at the MexiMart down the street.

Following the instructions on the bag of corn flour, I mixed all my wet ingredients which was leftover pork broth and water with my dry ingredients of maseca baking powder and salt. On the side, I whipped up my lard, and gently folded it into the batter.

With my batter, rehydrated corn husks, and pork filling, I went into zen mode. I assembled tamal after tamal. Flatten husk. Spread batter with spatula. Spoon in filling. Roll. Fold in sides. Tie it all together. I was a machine: a Korean-American, Mexican-inspired, football watching, pajama wearing, tamales assembling machine.
Here is the conclusion. Purchasing 2 tamales from Don Carlos Taco Shop in La Jolla is $4.56. Making my own costed $28.22 for the supplies, unknown energy costs, 4 hours of total labor with product that tastes like Don Carlos's tamales. So next year to honor the day of the dead, I am marching down to Don Carlos's, purchasing two tamales and a Pacifico with lime and calling it a day. Who knows, I might even wear a sexy pirate costume so I could look pregnant with my tamales filled belly.

A trip to the desert.

Since moving to San Diego, I find myself growing soft. I eat donuts with greater frequency, so my belly is softer. I take constitutionals at night without mace, so my guard is softer. And I got acclimated to the southern California weather, so my temperature core got softer.

For the past 2 weeks now, we have been covered by a marine layer. It has made me cranky and vitamin D deficient. I hated work. I hated the boy and yelled at him on the phone. I found myself feeling sad and watching a lot of Bravo TV.

I called Evil Twin #2. "I want to go to Palm Springs. It is totally impractical." Her reply, "Sounds like a great idea." Sometimes, all you need is approval to let loose. So I packed up my Nissan Versa and headed out for the desert.

Palm Springs is 2.5 hours away. I stopped at a premium outlet mall along the way. I was perplexed by the throngs of European and Chinese tourists carrying suitcases with them going gaga over Tod's driving moccasins, Judith Liber clutches, Jimmy Choo stripper shoes, Zegna ties, and Gucci scarves. I tried shopping for an hour, but then gave up. It was a sunny day 85F with desert sun. I sat with a lemonade and watched people.

My next stop was Palm Desert and Palm Springs. I took a self guided tour of Mid-century modern houses. I have no idea what this term means except I saw a lot of houses with a lot of glass and learned someone named Lautner is awesome. (I will buy a book so I could feel a little less like a country rube.) Then I went into Palm Springs itself. I saw a collection of bakelite jewelry and other costume styles of the 20s. I also drove by 3 dialysis centers. I am not sure if my eyes are just in tuned with them, or there are just a lot of people who need dialysis in Palm Springs. At around of 3:30pm, I was feeling a little peckish. I stopped by one of the italian restaurants (there are a lot in Palm Springs each one claiming to once have served Al Capone) and ate a dinner special. That is right. I ate dinner at 3:30pm in Palm Springs.

After a large meal, I moseyed onto Dessert Hot Springs. This town is in the middle of nowhere. I mean there is the desert and this small town pops up like Brigadoon. My "hotel" was a 7 room yoga retreat place. In the center of the hotel was a pool. At one end was water that came out of the hotspring and was 168 degrees and as you went down the pool the water was cooler. According to the two old lesbians (naturally) who owned the place, the minerals in the water would heal almost every ailment you would have. I laid by the pool, getting in occasionally, as I waited for my treatment. I got a scalp massage, and then was ordered to shower immediately as not to contaminate the pool or the Frette sheets (I still don't know what Frette is, but that is also on my to do list today.) By that time it was late, so I went to for a late night soak. I stared at the stars, drank some champagne I bought at Trader Joe's, and listened to two girls talk about how bitchy their friend was and how awesome LA was. I stayed in the healing waters for 2 hours before going to bed at 9pm.

I awoke at 6 am. I could not believe how trippy the night had been. Before going to bed the old lesbians told me that nothing was more magical than floating in the pool as the sun rose. So I trudged to the pool. I put some cylinder floating things under my feet. I lay there staring at the crescent moon as the sun came up and painted the normally unattractive San Jacinto mountains a perfect shade of persimmon. It was a rather religious experience.

After the sun came up, an old Brazillian couple that were staying in the deluxe room asked me to join them in some morning yoga. Why not. I got some more sun, a little more soaking in the "healing waters." By 9:30am, I was ready to go back to marine layer. I drank a shot of wheat-grass and had some yogurt and was back on the desert highway.

Evil Twin #1 is part of the 99%

When I was a junior, I had to take Contemporary Civilization with Professor Malefakis. Evil Twin #2 and I used to joke around that his name sounded evil. (Mal = Bad) Truth be told, he was an ass. He was the worst kind of bully, as he knew every possible way to get under the skin of his students. He called people names. He made one girl cry. He made one boy want to punch his face. He even tried to weird out Evil Twin #2 by asking her if she wanted a penis, when discussing Freud. Evil Twin #2, having not said more than five words all semester, was caught off guard, which is exactly what this guy wanted.

Every class he would draw a nonsensical diagram of the thought of the day. A switchback funnel was a diagram of political ideologies. Sticks was a Hobbesian view on a society. If you discount my weirdly eidetic memory for lectures, one diagram stood above the rest. It was a bunch of rectangles and the need to get rid of feudalism. The fundamental idea was this: the consolidation of goods under the control of a few makes little room for the exchange of goods, and the lack of movement of people throughout the society.

I think Malefakis and I have a lot in common. I draw terrible pictures and cannot always convey what I am thinking to those around me. My friend, who is against the Occupy movement, has been particularly snarky about it, so I desperately have been trying to explain why I think they have a point. But I might as well be drawing a bunch of rectangles for all she cares. Most statuses on Facebook have been "Occupy my bed" or "Occupy France." However, like Malefakis, I will be oblivious to the naysayers continue to spew my ideas.

Fundamentally, I love the idea of Wall Street. A company or a person with a great idea, product, or service, sells shares of itself. The company gets increased capital and they get to expand and sell their widgets to a broader audience. Fabulous.

Somehow this beautiful thing went off the rails. Only a fraction of the companies listed in the NYSE participate in giving investors dividends. At some point, all stocks became entirely based on its potential to grow. According to Morning Star, a company that is in the red but has the potential to be 4 times bigger in 2 years is worth more than one that will have a steady profit margin of 17% every year. For a company to even stay afloat in the stock market, they have to do something extraordinary every quarter. Stock prices seem to fluctuate more on rumor than fact. Also, this phenomenon meant short term solutions started having a large impact. Google can shift one of its headquarters to Ireland and for those first few quarters profits went up immensely. This increase was not a result of making a better search engine, but finding a loopholes in existing rules.

But what is the true added value for all these things? Does the actuary, who discovers they can move all their jobs to India and save the company 20% truly add value? The new class of CEOs remind me a lot of the corporate raiders of the 80's. Does that add value? According to Wall Street right now, the answer is yes. The bottom line is those changes made the company more profitable for a few quarters. Our excuse is they deserved it for being clever and ruthless. Really? We are now rewarding people for excessive greed and short-sightedness. And that does not create a better environment for innovation, which I propose is the true value we are all seeking.

But let's take a more Machiavellian approach to this problem. Not everyone can be immensely rich, nor is it bad to be immensely rich. No one wants to squash that drive and ambition. By keeping the disparity between wealthy and the rest of the population to a manageable limit, the wealthy can still enjoy their moneys without a bunch of un-showered protesters. Listen, let's aim to be more German than Greek. Just sayin'.

This morning, I went down to Occupy San Diego. The participants looked homeless. They were a lot punk kids talking about how disillusioned they were. They seemed lazy and obnoxious. I brought coffee and donuts, as it was cold and foggy today. They were totally ungrateful. But here is the biggest lesson I learned. Sometimes the biggest assholes, like Malefakis and the protesters, have a point. Wall street sucks right now, and something has to change.

I am Evil Twin #1, and I am part of the 99%.